ps.design

For a while now I’ve wanted to design something big for people to download and use for themselves. I originally had thought of a collection of useful web interface elements, but they seem to be everywhere now with DesignMoo and 365psd being so successful in releasing amazing elements, icons and templates. What is less available is the entire web layout, which is why I decided to design a full web layout including homepage, gallery, styles and contact page for people to download and slice to their own content.

The idea behind the theme was that regardless of what you wanted your website to be – personal, portfolio or business – this design would cater for every avenue you could want from a Photoshop template, hence the name Boulevard.

Included in the design is 5 colour options, and a further two alternate high-res textures for more personalisation. Every page has been designed to pixel-perfect standards, and is all arranged and aligned to a 12-column 960 grid. All the layers are in hierarchy order, and clearly labelled from top to bottom.

The font used is a free font called Prociono, which is available via the League of Movable Type, but I also included it in the download for immediate install. I also included in the package the original textures used if you would like to use these for other areas of the website. These were courtesy of *iamFreeman on deviantART and his Black Background Set.

Since I launched the template via my blog and DesignMoo there has been a combined one thousand downloads - which has left me flabbergasted and proud to know that a design I've done has been downloaded and used by so many people. I'm hoping to come across the design in the wild, which will tip me over the edge! I released all files are free for personal and commercial use, with no attribution necessary, thus making it a whole lot easier for people to use the design as their own. The only thing I asked for was a little bit of credit.

As part of the design, I also released a banner pack exclusively viaDesignMoo with four colours added into the original red colour shown on the Boulevard design. Although not quite as successful as the full layout, these banners have had over 200 downloads.

As another gesture of goodwill to readers of my blog, Facebook page and Twitter, I coded this design up and gave away 5 copies of the design away to people who participated in a giveaway.

To end the Boulevard series of freebies, I decided to push the boat out and make the series go out with bang. I could think of nothing better than to make the HTML template into a WordPress theme perfect for blogging, business or personal use. For this conversion I decided to enlist the help and support of the great guys over at CodeMyConcept to code the theme up under one condition - that the theme was sold to raise money for charity, and my chosen charity was Henshaws Society for the Blind.

After CodeMyConcept did an amazing job on the theme, the great guys over at Superhug agreed that they would waive their commission fees on the sales of theme so that 100% of the sales could go to Henshaws, and the theme is still on sale now for $25.